Slashdot Mirror
Earth's Core Spins Faster than Earth
Dreamwalkerofyore writes "The New York Times has an article on a recent affirmation that the earth's core rotates faster than the earth proper. From the article: 'Confirming assertions first made in 1996, a team of geophysicists are presenting data in the journal Science today showing that the earth's inner core... spins faster than the rest of the planet. Over a period of 700 to 1,200 years, the inner core appears to make one full extra spin.
That extra spin could give scientists information about how the earth generates its magnetic field.'"
Probably something - what will be interesting is if someone can figure out not only the speed, but also the direction of the spin. There's no guarantee that the inner core is actually spinning along the same axis as the mantle/crust. Seems possible that an offset of a few minutes between the axes of rotation might explain why the magnetic poles are not exactly matched with the rotation axis of the earth.